Alex > Alex's Quotes

“It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.
To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Stories have changed, my dear boy,” the man in the grey suit says, his voice almost imperceptibly sad. “There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognize for what they are. And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep overlapping and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there in no telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl. And is not the dragon the hero of his own story? Is not the wolf simply acting as a wolf should act? Though perhaps it is a singular wolf who goes to such lengths as to dress as a grandmother to toy with its prey.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Birds are and always have been reincarnated old men with Tourette's syndrome having somehow managed to dupe the reproductive saga. They fuck each other and tend to their home repairs and children while never missing their true mission. To scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don't speak bird.”
― Kurt Cobain, Journals

“There were times when initial introductions were so vested with something other as to confuse and distract and entrance both parties, Cy would realize later. And only further into their relationships when you knew the person better, and their place in your life became clear, if there was love, if there was hate, if there was deepness of any kind, only then did you understand that the embers of meaning have been present all along and glowing since that first moment you laid eyes on them. As if you already knew them before you came to know them. As if some rift had bent time.”
― Sarah Hall, The Electric Michelangelo

“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Love, in the universal sense, is unconditional acceptance. In the individual sense, the one-on-one sense, try this: we can say we love each other if my life is better because you're in it and your life is better because I'm in it. The intensity of the love is weighted by how much better.”
― Chris Crutcher, Deadline

“If someone's different from you and it scares you or makes you mad, that's God telling you to take a closer look. If you're scared or mad, that's about you, not about the person who scares you or angers you.”
― Chris Crutcher, Deadline

“Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him.”
― Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl

“Language can't describe reality. Literature has no stable reference, no real meaning. Each reader's interpretation is equally valid, more important than the author's intention. In fact, nothing in life has meaning. Reality is subjective. Values and truths are subjective. Life itself is a kind of illusion. Blah, blah, blah, let's have another scotch.”
― Dean Koontz, False Memory

“One thing I will say, they often take it better than a man. Pain, that is. Probably the residue of tolerance from when they were all bloody witches and got stoned or burned or drowned for it, eh lad? Never tell your mother I said that, by the way.”
― Sarah Hall, The Electric Michelangelo

“Those partial to drink were hiding faults and dishonesty. They were sloppy souls, even the ones with pleasant manners and fine noses.”
― Sarah Hall, The Electric Michelangelo

“People don’t pay much attention to anything unless you give them reason to”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“Maybe that's what growing up means, in the end - you go far enough in the direction of - somewhere - and you realise that you've neutered the capacity of the term home to mean anything. [...] We don't get an endless number of orbits away from the place where meaning first arises, that treasure-house of first experiences. What we learn, instead, is that our adventures secure us in our isolation. Experience revokes our licence to return to simpler times. Sooner or later, there's no place remotely like home.”
― Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz

“What a world I've come up through, said Liir to himself. Oh, what a world, what a world.”
― Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz

“...Where shall I say you've gone?"
She threw an arm about airily. "Oh, way up high. Over the rainbow somewhere, I guess.”
― Gregory Maguire, Out of Oz

“Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.”
― Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

“For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“It’s fascinating. You know all these words, and they’re all English, but when you string them together into sentences, they just don’t make any sense.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“You know, some people think Shadowhunters are just myths. Like mummies and genies." Kyle grinned at Jace. "Can you grant wishes?"

"That depends," he said. "Do you wish to be punched in the face?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“He looks," Simon had once said to Isabelle, "like he's thinking about something deep and meaningful, but if you ask him what it is, he'll punch you in the face.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“Medium clever,” Simon acknowledged. “Like a cross between George Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven and those MythBusters guys, but, you know, better-looking.”
“I’m always so glad I have no idea what you’re vacantly chattering about,” said Jace. “It fills me with a sense of peace and well-being.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

“I am a man" he told her, "and men do not consume pink beverages. Get thee gone woman, and bring me something brown.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“You said you were going for a walk!? What kind of walk takes six hours?"
"A long one?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“Did you ever think that in a past life Alec was an old woman with ninety cats who was always yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn? Because I do,”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“If you ever meet the man who could take advantage of Isabelle, you’ll have to let me know. I’d like to shake his hand. Or run away from him very fast, I’m not sure which.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“Enough, both of you,' Clary said. 'You can't be complete jerks to each other forever, you know.'

Technically,' said Simon, 'I can.'

Jace made an inelegant noise; after a moment Clary realized that he was trying not to laugh, and only semi-succeeding.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

“I had a life before Alec" Magnus snapped. "I'm the High Warlock of Brooklyn. I am here to take a Council seat on behalf of Lillith's Children."
"I thought Catarina Loss was the warlock representative," said Luke, surprised.
"She was," Magnus admitted. "She made me take her place so I could come here and see Alec.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire

“Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone